


Pearl Of Pain

by DGCatAniSiri



Series: James Vega Romance [8]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 07:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18048314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: James has put some distance between himself and Shepard after Ann Bryson volunteered to contact Leviathan.





	Pearl Of Pain

Getting Ann Bryson to a medical center had been a priority. James had had a scowl on his face as he helped the young doctor. He hadn’t been happy about Shepard delaying the reactivation of the containment field around the artifact, cutting off Leviathan’s connection to the doctor. Though it seemed no permanent damage had been done, he was still a little frosty about Shepard risking her. He’d seen what Leviathan had done to Hadley, the assistant to Doctor Bryson (senior, the late). The man was in a vegetative state, one that even the best medical minds in Citadel space said was probably permanent.

Leviathan had turned his brain to jelly in all the ways that mattered. And Shepard had risked that happening to Ann.

Sure, she’d gone into the whole mess with her knowing consent, fully willing to risk herself. But...

The Normandy locked on to the signal out near some barely charted planet – a series of numbers and the name “Desponia.” Sounded similar to despair. James wasn’t prone to poetry, but he didn’t like the similarity. 

He’d busied himself, keeping distracted with his weights. It was something that kept him busy.

And, as the Normandy neared Desponia, he felt the need for a distraction more and more.

“Mister Vega?” James looked up at Steve’s question. The other man looked concerned. 

“Yeah Esteban?” James asked, letting out a grunt as he finished out the rep.

“You’ve been down here for the last few hours, and... Well, normally you and the Commander have been... close.” Steve seemed to think that he was bringing up something sensitive. And... okay, it kinda was. And he wasn’t wrong.

James figured that it wasn’t going to be a good idea to have this conversation with the weights in the way, so he set his bars back and sat up.

“It’s... It’s really nothing, Esteban,” he said, knowing that Steve wouldn’t let it go that easily.

The glare that elicited from the other man was pretty clear confirmation. “If it were nothing, you wouldn’t be down here, pumping iron like this. I know what trying to distract yourself looks like. Especially distraction because of something with someone you love.” 

Yeah, he would, wouldn’t he?

James knew that this wasn’t going to just go away – Steve was determined, especially when it came to the things that affected those he cared about. And James had been part of that circle for a while now, even before the Normandy. Which meant that he would push.

“Just... This search for Leviathan... I’m not so sure about it.” A half-truth, but close enough to it that he could deflect too much of Steve’s questions. 

It didn’t seem to be enough to throw Steve off the trail, but he was apparently going to let James have that little bit – if he was opening up a little, that seemed to be at least the place that he’d start focusing on. “It’s a lead that can help us fight the Reapers. Stop the war. We know that the Reapers want Leviathan. Can we really pass up the opportunity it offers?”

“What even is that? Something that the Reapers want, so we have to deny them it? Is it an individual, a group? We don’t know.”

“We know that its’s something that the Reapers are after. Anything they want is either a weapon they can use or a weapon that can be used against them. You really think anyone would pass up investigating this, even if they weren’t Shepard?”

He wasn’t wrong. Hell, James desperately wanted to get back to Earth and kick some mechanical tentacled asses. But the risk was still pretty high for something they didn’t even know what it was. “Yeah, I guess. Just... We’re risking so much on something we haven’t even got a decent picture of. If Leviathan can control people, what happens if it tries to control us? Or worse, what if it can?”

That elicited a discomfited shudder from Steve. “Better dead than indoctrinated, I’ll say that.”

“I heard that.”

“Agreed.” Both men turned to see Shepard standing there. He offered a small smile. “At ease. Just coming down to check on... the shuttle readiness. Couldn’t help overhearing.”

‘Shuttle readiness.’ Meaning he was really here for James, but, with James having actively kept them distant the last few days, he was offering the other man an out if he didn’t want to talk.

Dammit, even when James was mad at Shepard, he couldn’t help but love the compassion he showed.

With a look, Steve started back towards the shuttle. “Some pre-flight checks are left, Commander. Oughta go take care of them.”

And so James and Shepard were left alone.

“James.” Shepard’s voice held no admonishment or condemnation. Just... a question. 

James sighed, and supposed he needed to give him an answer. “You risked her life, Loco. She’s not a soldier, but you put her life on the line anyway.”

Shepard took a moment, not outright answering James’s accusation with the easy counter of it being her choice, her decision to help Shepard find Leviathan, find, as she’d put it, the monster that killed her father. She HAD wanted to help. James couldn’t deny it.

But...

“What do you want me to say, James? She was our only lead to Leviathan, a lead that’s paying off. And, last report we got from Huerta, they expect her to make a full recovery. What’s done is done.”

“Yeah, I know.” The words came out more bitter than James had really expected them to.

“James.” Shepard was clearly able to tell, this wasn’t just about Ann Bryson. He reached out to James, a gentle hand on his shoulder. “This isn’t just about Ann, is it?”

With a sigh, James nodded. “You risked a civilian. It turned out okay, but...” He couldn’t quite get the words to come out.

But Shepard was a smart man, even if he weren’t in tune with his lover enough to figure these things out. “...but it didn’t on Fehl Prime.”

The mention of the colony James had been on when the Collectors had hit, the colony where he’d let people die in order to save intelligence that Shepard had, across the galaxy, rendered moot... It seemed to hit James like a physical blow. He slumped, as if he’d been defeated.

“We’re supposed to be protecting people. But instead, we put them in danger. We justify it with ‘the mission’ and ‘to save humanity,’ that in the face of extinction, what’s one life, but... You and me, we spent years, training to put our lives on the line. Those are the people we’re supposed to be protecting, not letting walk into danger.” He let out a bitter laugh. “’Course, you managed to keep Ann alive. Me... I got a colony killed.”

“The Collectors did that, James. Yeah, you made a choice, but it was one that had your hand forced by what the Collectors did.” Shepard placed a gentle, comforting hand on James’s arm. He looked to the other man with open affection, and sympathy. “James, you can’t carry this weight forever. You know that.”

James knew Shepard was right about it. He understood that he had to let that weight go at some point, if only because the weight would crush him if he stood under it for too long. He’d make a wrong move, hesitate at the wrong moment, be so worried about making a mistake he’d fulfil that same prophecy. He was not going to survive this weight, and anyone could tell.

“You know, I thought I’d gotten past it after telling you about it. That the worst thing was to admit it, y’know? Everyone called me a hero for just surviving, for the fact that even three of us managed to make it out alive, under my leadership. But I just feel...”

“Like a fraud. Like you didn’t deserve to make it out of there. Like if someone said if you’d kill yourself and it would bring back all those lives, or a hundred of them, or a dozen, or even just one, you’d do it with no hesitation.” Shepard spoke with confidence, and he’d managed to complete James’s thought. As if...

_Shit._ “You felt that way after Akuze, didn’t you?” 

“Months. Years. Sometimes still, though the Reapers have pushed it to the back of the list of things that keep me up at night. But there are still moments that... I just stop and remember that I’m still alive, while people who I cared about, people who served alongside me, died senselessly, because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Shepard looked away for a moment, collecting his thoughts. Then he looked back to James, his eyes full of sympathy, but having the authoritative draw that said that what he was about to say was important and he needed James to pay complete attention to him. “It’s not the same level as a colony, but it’s still a burden I carry. The burden of command. We have to make these decisions. And I can’t tell you a commanding officer – or anyone whose been invited, let alone made it through, the N7 program – who doesn’t have that burden somewhere in their history. This is the kind of burden that we carry with us forever in some fashion. That you think about it means you’re a caring and compassionate person. But you can’t let it define you, be the only thing that you think about.”

It was certainly something that James had thought on his own. It’s not like that wasn’t a common refrain when it came to trying to work through this. Hell, James had been required to get a sign off from an Alliance psychologist before he’d gone back on duty who’d said similar things. It wasn’t new to hear this.

But it was meaningful from Shepard, Shepard had been in the same position he’d been. He’d made the same kind of decisions that James had. It meant something, coming from someone who’d been through it. 

It wasn’t comforting to hear that he’d never be free of the weight. He hadn’t even fully realized that he’d still been carrying that weight, even after the conversation that he and Shepard had had in his cabin... Had it really only been maybe six or seven weeks ago? God, it seemed so much longer. He’d thought that conversation had been enough to lay the ghosts to rest, having spoken about Fehl Prime to someone else, talk about how he’d been praised for it. But...

He’d been silent long enough that Shepard seemed to realize that he was thinking over the words. Shepard offered him a supportive smile. “It’s something you’re probably going to have to ‘work through’ several times, you know. It’s not just a one-and-done kind of experience.”

“Not exactly what I wanted to hear, loco,” James said, a hint of his more usual good humor creeping into his voice. 

“We rarely get to hear everything we want to,” Shepard countered with a grin. “This is traumatic, not just a bad decision that your brain won’t let go of. We’re only human, and we need time to work through these things. With the war, we haven’t really had the ability to give this the time it deserves.”

James let out a grim chuckle. “Bet the shrinks are gonna make a lot of bank when this war is over, huh?” He had a sneaking suspicion that Shepard was going to hold him to seeing someone – Alliance or other – once the fighting was done. 

“I get the feeling a few asari therapists are going to be sending generations of kids to college on the galaxy’s trauma.” Put that way, it almost sounded predatory. 

James took a deep breath, getting himself back to what he considered normal – it was important to air this out, he knew, but there was still a war on, and they’d be hitting Leviathan’s home soon. He needed to focus, get back to functional normal, at least for the time being. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. I... I think I’ll be good, loco.”

“Are you sure? Did we get all of this aired out?” Shepard asked with a raised eyebrow. He wasn’t wholly convinced, and James couldn’t blame him. But they still had the mission to focus on, and James wasn’t going to let this kick his ass.

“Yeah. For now, anyway. Like you said, time to work it out. Not something we can get figured out in one session, but... I get it. I get why you pushed with Ann. And... I’m sorry for holding it against you like this. I know you had your reasons for it, and... Well, she did volunteer.”

Shepard sighed. “For what it’s worth, James, I knew it was a risk to use Ann. If there’d been any other way, I’d have taken it. I don’t like all the choices I’ve been forced to make over the years. I’ve made choices that I’m ashamed to look at myself in the mirror over, but I’ve also been fully aware that they were the kind of choices that needed to be made and there was no right answer.” 

James could believe that. After all, he’d been on the Normandy only since the Reapers had invaded, and already there’d been some of those decisions, like the genophage, and the fact that the salarian Dalatrass had suggested sabotaging the cure. He could understand the temptation there, and he didn’t know how he’d have reacted. Even Shepard’s choice, refusing the Dalatrass, had its drawbacks – could the krogan be trusted with the chance that curing the genophage offered? Who knew at this point?

Shepard shook his head, clearing out some of the ghosts. “My point is... These decisions should stay with us. They’re not something to just walk away from, convinced you did the right thing, no matter who got hurt along the way. I didn’t want to risk Ann. But whatever Leviathan is, whether it’s a Reaper killer or another threat... we need to know. There wasn’t another lead, and the galaxy is a big place. If there were another way to track it, one that didn’t involve her, if there’d been a way to communicate with Leviathan without using her, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat.”

“I know. I know. I... You did the best you could with what you had. I get it. I shouldn’t have... gotten so upset. Just... I don’t like putting civilians in the line of fire, even if they volunteer.” Now that he’d aired out things, the fact that James had kept distance between himself and Shepard for the last few days seemed like such an overreaction. He felt embarrassed about having done that, and flashed Shepard a sheepish smile. “I... didn’t really handle it that well, did I?”

“Yeah, probably not.” Shepard gave him a smile and leaned in. “But I understand it.” He kissed James, soft and sweet, a reminder that Shepard loved him. “But really, next time you have a problem? You really shouldn’t hold it in. Talk to me about it. That’s what we’re supposed to do, after all. It’s what relationships are for, or so I’ve been told.”

James nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He managed a more traditional smile. “Esteban says I’ve got a bit of a thick head.”

“Maybe not how I’d put it...”

“Nah, I own it.” James loved the little laugh that got from his lover. “Loco... Whatever guilt I have for... what happened on Fehl Prime... I am glad it brought me to you. Wouldn’t mind changing a few details, but... Ending up here, with you... That’s the thing I’m proudest of. You’re making a difference, you’re why we’re gonna win this thing.” James waited a beat, and, as if trying to prove that he was getting back to normal, grinned. “And you’re pretty hot, too.”

Returning the grin, Shepard lowered his voice, so that the others in the cargo bay wouldn’t overhear. “You still haven’t tried out my bed, you realize.”

James would deny it later, but he certainly blushed at that.

And had quite a few ideas for how they’d test that fact, hopefully in the near future.


End file.
